The week started out great – we booked a trip to Hawaii for this March. YAY! It was also a relatively easy teaching schedule for me at both universities and its Basham’s birthday. Sounds good, right?
Well if you agreed then you are an idiot.
Friday night Basham is driving home at about 11pm and his check engine light comes on. Then the battery light comes on. Then smoke starts coming out of the hood. All signs point to BAD. He makes it off the freeway and relatively close to home when it just dies on him. Some good Samaritans were there to help push his car out of a major intersection…and right into the curb where his tire popped and now the alignment is all f’d up too.
Tow truck gets called but will take 30 mins to get there. He makes it home, goes to bed, then calls the same tow dude (I think that’s the official name for these guys) to pick him up and get towed to the mechanics the next morning. At 3pm we have not heard back from them and they are also closed on Sunday. Which means we will need to get a rental car so he can get to work on Monday….
Don’t worry – he got a pimp ass Chevy Aveo to drive around. OOOOOOOhhhh – fancy. Luckily Basham LOVED this car because we had to pay for it a second day as well.
Finally get the call on Tuesday with the damage report. About $350. I didn’t think I would be so happy with a $350 mechanics bill, but we were worried it would be way higher. I should’ve realized that it was only Tuesday and so much more could go wrong as the week progressed.
So now he has his car back, but at some point needs to get a tire to replace the one that popped AND get his alignment fixed. This all needs to take place at 3 different locations – tire place, mechanics and alignment specialist. We were at least getting good referrals to places with decent reviews.
New tire, check. Working engine ….uncheck (?) The car is overheating and is leaking coolant. Fun. Now Basham has to take his car back to the mechanic. They spend another 4 hours on the car and Basham gets to walk home from the body shop – about one hour. Currently he has made this walk 3 times this week. At least he is getting exercise.
Now we owe another $315 to replace the coolant reservoir (I really like that phrase actually). The guys at the shop seem pretty decent so we don’t feel like we are getting ripped off. They sincerely feel bad when Bash keeps bringing his car in. They offered to drive him home today – the day I let him have my car. Thanks anyway…
So after a day of him walking all over San Diego, it is time to celebrate his birthday! I leave work a lil late, go to the grocery store and get some of his favorite things = salmon, expensive wine, oreos, etc. Rush home to cook. I give him his birthday present (Eric Clapton tickets) and was so glad he liked it. Get in the shower real quick so I can start cooking. I am already hungry and it’s gonna take about an hour to get dinner ready.
We have some wine and I start furiously peeling potatoes. Get those started and put the salmon in the oven. It is stuffed with spinach and feta and smells SO good! Potatoes are boiling and I put some corn in the microwave. 40 mins pass and it’s time to take out the salmon. I grab the hot dish and place it on the stove. Apparently I don’t know how to do that and it spills all over our new rug. Basham hears the crash and comes into the kitchen. Now our beautiful salmon is all over the floor with little pieces of dog hair sticking out of it. I pull down the dish to load the spilled salmon onto. Warning: if you put a hot dish on your new kitchen rug it will burn the rug. IDIOT. This weekend I am going to try burning other areas of the rug to make an interesting pattern.
At this point Basham is vacuuming and I am trying not to cry. It’s not my party so I can’t cry if I want to. He gives me a hug and says “let’s go out to eat!”
He is a good husband.
So with all of the fabulous dinner options in lovely Mira Mesa, we head to Buca di Beppo. We hop in his car and……………………the check engine light comes on. FUCK. And we miss the turn for the restaurant, we are now on the freeway. Double FUCK. This better be the best damn spaghetti dinner ever.
At the restaurant I tell the waitress that it’s my husband’s birthday. She is very excited and I feel like a bad wife for bringing my husband out to a lame chain restaurant for dinner. But whatever. We get a free brownie and the entire wait staff singing a meatball related birthday song for Bash.
And then we get to this morning- when Basham goes out to his car and it won’t start. I try to imagine starving kids in Africa to bring my problems into perspective. In general thinking of starving kids always makes me feel better.
At this point we are about $800 in for car , tires, rental etc. I am so glad we are filthy rich.
I think I could write a country song about this – make sure to add a twang when singing out loud
“My wife dropped my birthday dinner on the floor.
Stupid car engine won’t start anymore.
But thank God it’s Friday and my work week is through
I’ll just get me a beer and a whiskey (or two).”
Happy weekend everyone!
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